Report 1146
Report #1146 Skillset: Skill: None Org: Symphonium Status: Completed Apr 2013 Furies' Decision: Solution 1. Problem: Some time ago, Celestialism/Nihilism angels and demons were rendered impossible to hit with critical hits. This was to ensure that they could not be killed in a single hit, compared to multiple hits being necessary to wipe out a fae entourage. The landscape of the game has changed since then, however, notably in the emergence of damage shift. Damage shift makes it very easy to carry over extra damage from prior hits to continually take out entourage ents in a single hit each, or to get multiple ent kills in the span of a few seconds for warriors using one-handed weapons (or those using beast battle prudently). Combat is balanced around these ents existing and being readily available to the guilds that have access to them, so it shouldn't be so easy to wipe them out on whim. This report seeks to bring greater ent durability and equity between the various guardian/wiccan guilds. 0 R: 0 Solution #1: Make all entourage fae and Illuminati entities immune to critical hits 0 R: 0 Solution #2: In addition to solution 1, adjust the health pools of the full entourages such that a full entourage of fae, Illuminati entities, and an angel/demon are all relatively close to equal. 0 R: 0 Solution #3: Adjust champion ents in a similar fashion to solution 1 and 2, though separately from the full entourages. Player Comments: ---on 4/13 @ 00:02 writes: This report was submitted on behalf of the Institute Envoy. ---on 4/13 @ 00:33 writes: The one thing that should be clarified aforehand is if killing ents is supposed to be a feasible tactic in (1v1) combat or just something you do when they get left behind. If it is the latter, then sure, make them uncrittable and give them all healthpools large enough to survive a few hits. If, however, killing ents is supposed to be a viable way to counter wiccan/guardian offense, then they shouldn't take more to kill than an average demigod staff cast for a 1p ent, two for a 2p ent, 5 for demons/angels. So one full attack (at least two swings for one-handed warriors) per point of summoning powercost. ---on 4/13 @ 01:36 writes: They are supposed to be a viable tactic, but not too viable to the point that a demigod with a crit rune can crit one ent, damageshift + crit another then keep it going until there are few to no ents left. This has happened a lot, but I would agree that the ents themselves probably don't need more hp if this change goes through. So, all solutions are fine with me, but if I had to pick, 1 and 3 would be grand. 1 definitely. ---on 4/14 @ 01:21 writes: Supported. Veyrzhul's comment about "one power per attack" thing is a wholly arbitrary assignment, and no idea where it's coming from. I don't get why "counter" is being defined by "kill them faster than they can be summoned back." Killing them resets their timer which can be really annoying and summoning them back requires totally halting any momentum gained. There is no penalty for killing ents, at least in the case of Wiccans, they won't be killing you without them so you're just draining their power. That should not be happening. ---on 4/14 @ 02:29 writes: Solution 1 supported. ---on 4/14 @ 04:10 writes: I am personally still inclined towards the premise that killing ents is not a viable counter to the offense of ent users, for two reasons: 1. Repeatedly killing/resummoning ents completely stalls a fight. None of the fighters will get anywhere. 2. The burst nature of wiccan and guardian offense often allows them to go without (at least some of) their ents entirely until the burst is prepared, and then summon them in from a safe place (at no eq cost with open channels) right before doing their first burst move (aeon, first of several prepared hexes, final twist), and they can just move them to safety if the burst fails. This is not equally possible for all ent users, though. My suggestion of 1 attack round per power for summoning was connected to point 1 above (retaining combat momentum), but under the premise that killing ents should be a viable counter. ---on 4/14 @ 04:17 writes: I disagree with the premise that killing ents is not a viable counter given that no one will get anywhere simply because one side uses power to resummon them most of the time (ent users) and the other does not (the basher). They will eventually run out of power resummoning way before you run out of endurance bashing them. So in the end, the basher will quickly get the upper hand especially once crits start coming in. ---on 4/14 @ 04:48 writes: Still, killing ents is pretty much like turtling, your active offense stands still while you do it. I'd rather we made them all uncrittable and fairly durable, and removed the 'they are killable' argument when balancing them. ---on 4/14 @ 21:20 writes: As an aside, kether knocks off 50 charges from a targetted gem at present, where the maximum is generally 100 (150 for the one gem a researcher's crystal weapon is fashioned from), so I feel like a minimum of two full eq/bal hits should be the absolute floor for all ents. ---on 4/16 @ 02:39 writes: The whole strategy you just suggested is kind of ridiculous and a bit of a circus. ---on 4/18 @ 01:38 writes: I'm honestly torn on this one. I've been pretty vocal in the past about not buffing up fae ents, but things have changed pretty considerably since then (not so much in terms of the wiccan guilds as much as the other guilds and the playing field in general). So, making them less crittable is okay at this point. If ents need 3+ attacks to kill, killing them is still viable but no longer just a complete combat-ender (kill ent, resummon ent, kill ent, resummon, repeat ad nauseum). If they're made completely immune to crits the health might need to go down a bit so that they -can- be killed in a relatively decent number of attacks, though- Fae are more like institute gems than angels / demons. Angels / demons are just one object around which everything revolves, whereas there are many fae and the effects are split up between them. ---on 4/24 @ 13:28 writes: Solutions 1 and 2 are alright.